


a quiet place

by josiebelladonna, nirvhannahcornell (josiebelladonna), xtinamoon (josiebelladonna)



Series: joeyrotica [2]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Denial of Feelings, Erotica, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, One Shot, Secret Relationship, Sex Tapes, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 23:22:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21216743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/xtinamoon
Summary: “He and I had known each other for years and the adolescence was the last time we saw each other. He was alone, and he missed me. But at the same time, this was an interesting, rather jarring side to him. I had always known him as that little Indian boy with no one to talk to; I thought I had known him but this was something else.”





	a quiet place

**Author's Note:**

> Totally fiction, but loosely inspired by a couple of incidents that actually happened to me with an old classmate. Inspired by the Seinfeld episode “the Tape” as well  
This fic is all about a love of home and that proverbial "safe place" we all go to when the going seems to get too tough.  
#thejoeygirls 💜😘
> 
> "Take this longing from my tongue,  
whatever useless things these hands have done.  
Let me see your beauty broken down,  
like you would do for one you love."  
-Leonard Cohen

February, 1985.  
“Every piece of art you see here is from me.”  
It was such a stepping stone for me to have my own art show here in New York City. Me, the little art student who stood on the outside looking in with her peers and the vagabond, now twenty-four and talking to people from the New York Times about her craft: I never would have guessed I made it this far in my career.  
It was only two years ago when I had woken up feeling like my life was over. That old job drained me dry even if it brought home the bacon to myself and my parents. Art was in my soul, and it ached to flood right out of me, ever since I was a toddler.  
My parents and I relocated out here to the East Coast from the southeastern side of Los Angeles because my mom’s job was transferred to the city of Rochester. They decided on Oswego to live at given the commute was a quick seventy-five minutes, and thus I called the region home. But there have been many times where I was asked why no accent and my response of “California baby, New York kid” never flew too well with everyone. It was particularly isolating at school when I watched the kids on the playground and I was relegated to the swing set or bunking myself up in the library with a book to read or a picture to draw.  
It wasn’t until I met Joe in the beginning of the second grade when I began to feel more at ease with my peers.  
I still remember sitting down at the table in the library, right across from him. He wore a bright red hockey jersey under a big black windbreaker and he didn’t look very comfortable there: he had this stern, serious expression plastered on his face, too serious for a little boy so I knew right away he was bit of an outcast himself. I asked him if I could sit with him and he raised these big brown eyes up at me from the book he was reading, and nodded.  
I remember examining the nappy black hair all around his head and how it dangled down onto his shoulders, almost like a stuffed animal. His skin was light brown and smooth, and with his brown eyes, I realized I was sitting with a little Indian boy. He kind of resembled me because I had the same complexion and type of hair: I thought our eyes looked similar. At one point, he squirmed in his seat and whispered, “could you not stare at me, please?”  
“Oh my goodness, I’m sorry,” I whispered back to him, shaking my head and directing my attention to the drawing in the sketchbook resting on my lap. Every so often, I took a glimpse up at him to see if he was still there. He never left until the bell rang and we all returned to class for the rest of the day.  
I often saw him walking the halls of the school with his dark hair covering part of his face and his little body wrapped up in heavy sweaters and baggy clothes. He never talked to anyone, even when we shared music class together at one point during the year. I was in the choir section while he tucked himself behind the tiny drum kit in the corner.  
It was the middle of November when I caught him on the walk home after school. Both my parents worked so I had to walk with the other latchkey kids, but I never saw him with the group. The afternoon felt cold and crisp with incoming lake effect snow and our leader told us to hustle: I watched him catch up with us for a moment before he hung back on the curb near a vast grassy area lined with tall spruce trees. I watched him stand there for a moment before he crossed the street. I was curious about him and I wanted him to join us.  
Once all eyes were off of us and fixed on the street ahead of them I followed him across the street to the park. I reached the sidewalk on the other side once the latchkey group had turned the corner. I returned to him right as he began to walk faster. I trotted after him; once I came closer to him, he peered over his shoulder at me before breaking into a run. Up ahead stood a tall chain link fence around a low bright blue wall surrounded by thick evergreen bushes. To our right was more grass, a side street, and then, beyond another tree line loomed a sliver of Lake Ontario.  
I picked up the pace to catch up with him.  
“Leave me alone—“ he pleaded to me.  
“But why?” I blurted out.  
“Leave me alone, please!” He ran away towards the bushes near the hockey rink, but I followed him. He was a fast runner, his legs pumping so much harder than mine. But I lurked back a bit to watch him duck behind the biggest one near the door of the rink. Panting, I spotted his nappy hair from behind the top side of the pine needles. I rounded the edge of the bush closest to me to find he had taken a seat against the bare branches; right before him, and right next to me stood the bright blue wall of the rink.  
He bowed his head into his arms, which he folded over his knees, like he was trying to hide from me.  
“Hey—are you okay?” I choked out, slipping in between the bush and the wall.  
“Don’t look at me,” he begged from his folded arms. I took a knee next to him.  
“Hey—Hey, it’s okay,” I assured him, kneeling closer to him.  
“No, it’s not,” he snapped back. I pushed a branch out of the way to come closer to him.  
“What happened?” I asked, setting a hand on the base of the branch behind me.  
“Nothing.”  
“I think something happened,” I pointed out. He sniffled, and then he lifted his head to look at me with those big brown eyes.  
“Do you promise not to tell?”  
“Pinky promise.” I stuck out my right pinky finger for him. He swallowed before hooking his right pinky around it.  
“Okay,” he finally said, letting go of my finger, “I’m ugly.”  
I was stunned.  
“You’re ugly? Who said that?”  
“Everyone. When you’re half Injun, people will look at you and you wonder why and ask yourself if you can do anything.”  
“Half what?”  
“Injun,” he repeated, sniffling again. He paused for a second. “That’s a word my grandma taught me when I was little. She said that’s a word white people like to use to put Indians down.”  
“Why are you using it then?” I asked, shifting my weight to better feel comfortable against the branches.  
“She said if we use it, it loses its venom.”  
“You think I could use it?” I suggested.  
“Are you Indian?”  
“Yeah. My grandpa is Blackfoot.”  
“My mom, and my grandma and grandpa are all Iroquois. I don’t know about your tribe but you know, I do—I do feel better talking about it, though. I don’t feel so all alone.” He cleared his throat and hunched his shoulders to keep the warmth in his little body.  
“I’m also Italian from my dad’s side,” he added, shivering.  
“I’m German, Norwegian, and African,” I told him. “So don’t worry about feeling ugly. I’m a mess.”  
I nestled even closer to him, so close in fact I put my arm around him. I could feel the wind picking up from behind the bushes and over the top of my head.  
“I’m Hannah,” I told him. “What’s your name?”  
“Joe. But everyone calls me Joey.”  
He glanced around the nook in the bushes, the tops of which protected us from the outside world. It was quiet here with just the two of us.  
“Let’s make this our safe spot,” he told me. “We can come here when we both feel alone.”  
“It’s a quiet place here,” I added.  
We often came back to that little spot, all throughout the second grade and the rest of elementary school. He told me he missed me after a good snow because we couldn’t meet up there, but always did during the spring and summer. The two of us walked home after school together and then strode across the grass, and hung out there for a while until we had to get our butts back home because of homework. We talked about our day, like something that happened at recess or at lunch or during class. He always made me laugh with his little off-the-cuff quips and his spicy sense of humor; I often made him laugh when I learned sarcasm and my humor grew sharper. Nothing fancy, just two kids hanging out together.  
We returned to it as we grew older and Joey found interest in hockey and then music. Every single time we took the exact same seating with our backs to the grass and our feet pointed to the outside wall. I always put my arm around him whenever he felt too cold; sometimes he did the same with me, too. At school, I almost never saw him because our classes were down the hall from each other, and so seeing him was the best part of the school day.  
Meanwhile, I watched his hair grow longer and thicker and darker to where it was solid black. We listened to our voices change, his squeaky little boy voice breaking and falling lower, and mine growing more womanly.  
We even watched our hips grow fuller—it was more so the case with me, but his developed a gentle curve, all while he grew lankier: he gained all of his weight in the form of slender but strong muscles. The first time I knew he was going to be a tall man was in the middle of sixth grade, and one of the last times I saw him. When he stretched out his legs towards the wall, his jeans legs receded back up enough to reveal the very tops of his black Chuck Taylors.  
The last time we saw each other was the last day of the summer before seventh grade, and I had received a letter in the mail telling me I had been accepted into a brand new art school over in Rochester, which meant my parents and I would have to move over there.  
“It’s the seventh through the ninth grades only, though,” I assured him. “So I could come back by the time regular high school starts up.”  
“But that’s three years without you, though,” he remarked. “Who am I going to hang out with until then?” I could never answer that question.  
And before we returned home, and we stood to our feet, and strode over to the curb and stopped before crossing. I put my arms around him to feel him one last time: even though he had grown slim and toned with time, he had this nice soft feeling to him. He held me in his slender arms against his deepening chest and I never wanted to let go of him, not just from the fact I was saying goodbye to my best friend but from the fact I always wanted to stay with his softness and his gentleness.  
He never saw me grow heavier with everything ballooning: indeed, by the time I started ninth grade and my technical freshman year of high school, I was five foot seven and a hundred sixty pounds. Another fifteen on me and I’d be considered fat. My parents worked long days so I often spent my time alone.  
The blessing, however, was art: I managed to make art so well that I was at the top of my class by the end of the ninth grade. The other blessing was having found a tape recorder to record my thoughts. Since I was alone, I could speak my thoughts aloud and I felt better doing it like that instead of putting them in writing.  
But I wasn’t returning to Oswego upon graduation. I kept going in the arts all through my high school years, and yet not one time did I hear a word from Joey. I hoped he could find me as I started losing weight and looking forward to being a part of something greater than myself. It didn’t help matters I was surrounded by fears of an economic downturn, even though by my eighteenth birthday in the middle of April I landed a factory job: it couldn’t come at a better time as my dad was laid off from his job and my mom worried about being the sole breadwinner. I stayed there for a year and a half until the place closed down. I was forced into a job at Xerox, which I liked at first because I was bringing home money to help my parents as much as myself.  
But over time I hated it there. The hours were ridiculous so I couldn’t see my parents that often, or make art so much. There came a point before my twentieth birthday I had gone so far to writing a suicide note and a plan on how to kill myself, including finding a way back to Joey so I could tell him goodbye for the last time. I would then drive into Oswego and scout out a drug dealer and overdose on heroin right there at home.  
But it was the thought of him, that belief that he and I would reunite in the future, that saved me from my own demise. I finally said enough with the job, but I had faith in my art.  
It took me a full year before I made my first commission and it was modest. I worried about my parents and I being evicted and thus I poured my all, all of my yearning to return to the quiet place and to Joey, into every single piece. We were given two days to leave our condo when I had one of my drawings posted in a gallery in the heart of the city and I was invited to share more with them.  
The commissions I made saved my parents’ condo and even though I was a ways off, I began scouting out for a place of my own. I started gaining weight again but I knew it was for the best.  
Over the next two years I had more and more art shows with galleries in Rochester and then that past autumn in 1983, I received a letter from that gallery that saved us, telling me they wanted to sponsor me in my own show in New York City. My own art show! In the city!  
I had my parents put in first class with me as we rode the rails from Rochester to the outskirts of the Big Apple in Yonkers, right near the Hudson River. This place was exactly how I would imagine an art gallery in New York would look like with its shiny wooden floors so clean I could eat off of them and all of my art treated like they were worth millions.  
I was so eager about the whole thing that I made an auditory diary in the back room right before showtime. That little recording became my sole moment alone for hours on end as I answered interview questions, made even more commissions, and even sold a few drawings. I was on top of the world for once, caught up in a state of euphoria.  
By eleven thirty at night, the owner announced five minutes before closing time, but I still had a couple of stragglers from the New York Times in conversation with me for at least another ten minutes. Once they node me good night, I breathed a sigh of both relief and elation.  
Day one was done: time to grab my things and head back to my hotel room next door to my parents’ room. I scooped up my purse and my tape recorder before heading out to my rental car. Once I sank into the driver’s seat, I rewound the tape to a clean strip.  
Nothing. It was full. Strange, it couldn’t have been, as I had plenty of space left.  
I played the spot where I had left off before to make sure it wasn’t a mistake.  
I gasped.  
At the end of the tape, I brought a hand to my mouth in shock. I blushed, but I didn’t know if I wanted to puke or scream.  
There was a lot of people in there, and they were all getting to know me, so I don’t know who would know me that well enough to leave an absolutely filthy message on my verbal diary. I stuck the recorder in the panel on the inside of the door as I drove back to the hotel a couple of blocks away.  
I let out a long low whistle once I found a spot near the door and killed the engine. I decided to take the tape recorder into my room with me because I could probably figure who was the creep who left that message. But at the same time a part of me felt flattered that a guy went out of his way to do this for me and on something I kept with me on my person whenever I needed it.  
I entered the lobby of the hotel and I spotted the tall, slender man at the ice machine on the side of the room. I recognized his jet black kinky hair, now quite the mess on top and grown halfway down his back in the most flyaway fashion, and most of all, that lovely curvature to his hips and thighs.  
“Joey?” I called to him once I came within earshot. He turned to face me: he never lost that solemn expression and his eyes were as rich brown as ever, but in spite of his thin body his face was rounder, such that his cheekbones filled out with a sweet little smile at me.  
“Hey, I know you,” he greeted me. My heart skipped several beats as I approached him with my arms wide open. As soft as ever.  
“Oh my God—“ I almost choked up holding him and then peering right up into his face.  
“Long time no see, right?”  
“Right?” I let go of him to stick the recorder in my purse, out of sight, out of mind. “Oh my God. What are you doing here?”  
“I’m in a band now. We’re recording a new album. We met with our producers today and they said it should be out in October just in time for my birthday. And our manager scrounged to get me and our guitarist both a room here because we’re both from outside the city. I was literally right down the street at a bar and I was just getting ready to go to bed.”  
“And then I showed up.”  
“Right. But shit, Hannah, how’ve you been, though? You look fantastic. I always thought you’d look good with a little weight.”  
“Oh, you should’ve seen me after I moved out to Rochester. I was like... almost fat. But I’m an artist now. I just had my own show down the block.”  
“I was wondering what was going on down there at that little gallery. The bar I was at was right across the street and I kept seeing all these people walking around, and I kept thinking ‘what’s going on?’ But I’m pretty beat, though.”  
“Oh, I hear you. It’s been a big, long day for me. But... you wanna talk more over breakfast?”  
“I’d love to. Here, I assume?”  
“Of course. Hey, free breakfast is free breakfast.”  
“True. Gimme another hug—“ He put his arms around me and I lay my head against his chest, and I closed my eyes. Even if it was for a minute, it felt sweet to be with Joey again. He let go of me and one final stroke of my back before returning back down the corridor to his room with his bucket of ice. I watched him slip inside before I returned to own room down the hall to my right.  
I set my purse down on the table to take the tape recorder out and give that voice another listen. The second time around felt a little better. Maybe this guy was just trying to mess with me, or maybe he did want me from all the desires he expressed to me. They all felt so pure and from a different place. Maybe he just wanted attention. But I needed to find him, especially after my breakfast with Joey.

*****************************

“So tell me more about your band.”  
It was a blustery day near the heart of New York City, and neither of us felt to be in the mood to go out anywhere no matter what happened. Joey had put on a baggy black button up shirt and fitted black jeans, and those black Chucks I remember from when we hung out at the quiet place.  
“I love this ghoulish look on you,” I remarked to him when he sat down across from me with a paper cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin.  
“Pretty rock n’ roll, isn’t it?” he replied, giving me a playful little smile.  
“Definitely.” I eyed the muffin, which just appeared to be larger than his own hand. “Ever since we were little,” I noted, gesturing at the top.  
“Hey, sometimes that’s all you need, especially when you’re a little boy and it’s all you can find for yourself. So anyway, my band—well, that’s not really correct. It’s not technically my band, they just brought me in because I can sing. They’re called Anthrax after... some kind of disease.”  
“That sounds attractive,” I said, nonplussed.  
“Well, we’re heavy metal and our other guitarist Scott was the guy who came up with the name after reading about it in a biology textbook. He said the name just sounded sinister, like perfect for a heavy metal band. But yeah, it’s me on vocals, Scott and a guy named Dan on guitars, and uncle and nephew Charlie and Frankie on drums and bass respectively.”  
“Uncle and nephew?”  
“Yeah, it threw me, too, because they’re like three years apart, but yeah—they’re uncle and nephew.” He took a sip from his cup before speaking again.  
“And like I said last night, Dan and I are kind of the odd ones, more so me.”  
“Why’s that?”  
“Scott’s from Queens, Frankie and Charlie are from right down the block in the Bronx. Dan’s from Rockland, almost in Jersey.”  
“But they’re all from the city, though,” I pointed out.  
“Right.”  
“How’d they find you, though?”  
He chewed on his bottom lip before replying to that.  
“I have my ways.”  
“You have your ways?” That beckoned a chuckle from me.  
“Of course. After you left, I kinda learned how to risk things and go forth by my own whims. Well, and it was the pressure of growing up, too. Growing up a half-breed Injun boy in upstate New York is quite the experience.”  
He took a bite from his muffin and another sip from his cup.  
“Did you go back to the quiet place?” I asked him in a low voice as he set down his cup and showed me a thoughtful look.  
“Once in a while. I had to stop in seventh grade because it got—kind of depressing.”  
“You were missing me.”  
“Totally. You know I made new friends after a while but I missed that—that—I wanna say ‘feminine principle’. Just being there in the bushes behind the hockey rink away from the world was something I needed to feel comfortable about myself and it was something I missed.” He showed me a solemn little smile before taking another bite of muffin. And then I remembered the message on my tape recorder.  
“Oh! You’re not gonna believe this,” I started.  
“What’s up?” he asked with his mouth full.  
“Last night after the show, I checked my tape recorder—I’ve kept a spoken word diary since high school just because I, too, was alone with no one to talk to and I needed to vent somehow—“  
“Mm-hmm...”  
“—so anyway I checked the tape after the show, you know for a new entry—and at some point or another, some guy left this—very interesting message on there.”  
“Interesting?” he echoed, his mouth full of muffin. “How so?”  
“Filthy. Absolutely filthy and naughty.”  
“Like... sexual?” He raised his eyebrows at me.  
“Very. It weirded me out at first but I gave it another listen and I found it kinda flattering to be honest.”  
“Like some dude walked in and he didn’t wanna bug you so he told you how he feels about you, though.”  
“I guess so. You know I’m not such a mess after all.”  
That coaxed a chuckle out of him. He took another bite of muffin before glancing down at his wristwatch.  
“Oh shit, I gotta go! I think Danny already left, though—I haven’t seen him.”  
“I’ll take you,” I offered him.  
“Oh, thank you!”  
We stood to our feet and hurried down the corridor to his room, and then my room to fetch the keys. He kept his arm around me as we rushed out to the cold and the rental car; he left his hair disheveled when I shut the passenger side door next to him.  
“So where we headed?” I asked him, tugging the seat belt over my chest.  
“Uh... just a few blocks away over in the Bronx. I’ll show it to you—“  
I started up the car and we headed on over to the recording studio in question. He showed me the way, past some bits of traffic, and into the heart of the Bronx.  
“I hope you can find that guy, though,” he declared at the last stoplight beforehand.  
“I hope so, too,” I admitted. “I mean, this guy—Joe, I’m not even kidding when I say this—this guy said the filthiest things I’ve ever heard in my life. Like... I almost don’t know how to react to it.”  
He cleared his throat before he turned his head to me.  
“What did his voice sound like?” he asked me. “Could you describe it?”  
“It was like—throaty and husky. There were some points where he lowered it to a whisper and—it was kind of hot, to be honest. You know, sexy.”  
The light turned green and we rolled forward towards the low brick building three doors down from the crosswalk. I pulled up to the curb, and he unbuckled his seat belt right before I pulled the parking brake. He cleared his throat again.  
“Was it something like—“ He cleared his throat a third time and leaned into my face, his eyes hooded and his expression in a state of euphoria.  
“—Hannah... I want you,” he breathed out in that exact same whispery voice as on the tape, “to go down on me with your tongue all along the side of my dick.” He let a soft airy moan out from the back of his throat and ran his tongue along the rim of his mouth, and the result was my toes curling right into the inside of my socks. I gaped at him right as his expression changed into a devilish grin.  
“That... was you?” I sputtered.  
“Shhh!” he hissed, bringing a finger to his lips even though the windows were rolled up.  
“That was you?” I demanded in a hushed voice.  
“That was all me.”  
“Joey—“ I was rendered speechless.  
“No! No! Please don’t tell anyone.” He sighed through his parted lips. “Okay. When I was across the street, you know—I saw all those people walking around and I wanted to check it out. So I took a quick walk over to the gallery and I saw you in there talking to some people—like I recognized you almost immediately. I knew I couldn’t get in so I went around back and when the coast was clear, I ducked in and saw the tape recorder on the table in there. I assumed it was yours because I didn’t think some girl would just leave her purse lying around like that unless she was protected. I just... went for it and filled up the rest of the tape and got out of there before anyone saw me. I really hope it didn’t perturb you too much—I only did it to be kinda—you know, sassy. That being our thing and everything.”  
I closed my lips a bit when he shrugged. I didn’t know what to say right then.  
“Anyways, I gotta go. I’ll ask Danny for a ride back so don’t sweat it.” He ducked out of the car and into the cold morning.  
“Yeah, yeah—“  
Once he closed the door, I lingered there for a moment before rolling forward to the next stoplight in hopes of turning around and heading back to the hotel.  
I gave the recording another listen. I sat there on my bed with my mouth agape.  
“Wow,” I breathed out when I reached the end. It made sense. He and I had known each other for years and the adolescence was the last time we saw each other. He was alone, and he missed me. But at the same time, this was an interesting, rather jarring side to him. I had always known him as that little Indian boy with no one to talk to; I thought I had known him but this was something else.  
I kept the whole thing tucked in the back of my mind for the entirety of the second day of my art show. I watched my parents speak to some people on the other side of the room. What would they think?  
It was the same shtick that night as the one before, and this time I really went back to my room with some big fat checks in my pocket. I strode into the lobby once again to find him walking towards the ice machine. He nodded at me and I decided to run over to him.  
“What’s up?” he greeted me.  
“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked him in a hushed voice.  
“Yeah, of course. In my room or in yours?”  
“Mine.”  
“Okay—“  
I led him down the corridor to my little room, right next door to where my parents were staying for one more night. He shut the door behind him and set the ice bucket on the table next to the TV, and fixed the lapels of his shirt.  
“This is about that message, isn’t it,” he guessed, rubbing his hands together.  
“Yeah.”  
“Look... like I said, I only did that to just play with you. I didn’t mean to like... creep you out or anything.”  
“No, no... you didn’t,” I promised him. “But I brought you in here because—I wanted to tell you that I didn’t realize you were so... sexual.”  
“Well...” he began reluctantly, “let’s just say I missed you, especially right around that time when—things happen.” He spoke with that same husky, breathy voice like on the tape. He parted his lips and unfastened the top button on his shirt to show off more of his chest. I wanted to touch him.  
I lunged for him with my arms wide open.  
“Oh—Oh, Joey—“ I breathed out before locking my lips with his. So soft. The only boy who could feel so soft and so like home to me.  
He put his hands on my back before he tugged me towards the bed. I could feel him taking off my blouse and then unhooking my bra. I tossed the bra to the side and unfastened my jeans, but I decided to keep them on for a moment more. I unbuttoned his shirt to feel his chest and his stomach. His skin felt smooth and warm like melted butter underneath my lips. I undid his jeans and kissed him all the way down his happy trail, and that stripe of warm, utterly gorgeous skin. I could feel myself growing moist with every caress of his skin. So soft, and also... sexy.  
“Okay, this is hot,” his voice broke as I inched closer to his genitals. I peeled back his jeans to better reach for his length. So big and full; makes sense with those thick thighs and those gorgeous hips; I could see he was erecting. I knew he wanted it, just like he said.  
I put my lips around it first before running my tongue along the side. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his eyes snapped shut and his lips pouted. He was surrendering to the feeling. I curled my tongue around the shaft like I was licking a popsicle. I put my lips around it again when I tasted something salty. He came right in my mouth. He let out a gentle but broken moan when I swallowed it down.  
I let go because I could feel him tapping on my arms. I crawled over him when he reached down my jeans and into my panties. His fingers wriggled right into me.  
“Wet as the streets outside,” he groaned out. I never realized how good that felt, with his fingers twitching and rubbing against that little spot. I stared right into his face as I could feel myself rising higher and higher. It was like a runner’s high, feeling my heart pound faster and my lungs scarcely fill with air but all I had with me was him, was Joey.  
“Oh fuck, I’m coming—!” I sputtered into his face.  
“That’s it!” he grunted, and he let go of me. I lay down on his chest which brought out a groan from him. We both panted from the intensity, but then he started laughing.  
“Wha—?” I could hardly breathe.  
“That’s my girl,” he said in a broken voice. I lifted myself off of him so he could take off his shirt and his jeans. I could taste him all on the inside of my mouth, but I could care less. I crossed a new threshold with my best friend, and I felt closer to him. Once he returned out of the bathroom, he invited me into the bed. He lay down on his side first and, once I switched off the lamp, I nestled in before him. I lay my head against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me.  
“Mmm, oh, Joey—that was wonderful,” I whispered to him.  
“That was everything I could’ve ever asked for from you, Hannah, baby doll.” His fingers stroked up my back and into my hair.  
“But let’s keep this a secret, though, okay?” he suggested. I took a glimpse up at his lovely dark face staring back at me.  
“Yeah, of course,” I promised him. “This here is our safe spot.”  
“It’s our safe spot,” he echoed, showing me that little smile again through the darkness. “It’s a quiet place.”  
I put my arms around his slim waist only to find he was still soft, still holding that sweet softness I had been longing for these past eleven years. I had been wanting to feel him again, in the deepest way possible, and in what better setting than in a quiet place.


End file.
